Snowmageddon 2013

About thigh deep in my yard today. Backup generator has been on since 10 PM yesterday night. I'd be surprised if power is back before Monday. Fairly happy our girls are not partial to playing in the snow!

The entire drama over some snow, in the winter of all seasons, oh the humanity.

We had a four day storm (northern California I-5 corridor) the week before Christmas, over 50" of snow in places, there is still over 24" in many places after several warm weeks . . . . just another weather event . . . . nothing to see here, move along.

I'm irrationally disappointed at Amazon over their handling of the storm.

I bought an item on Friday, needing it for Sunday, so I paid extra for Saturday delivery. They were promoting Saturday delivery when I visited the item's page and the manufacturer was only offering "overnight" delivery with no Saturday option. I could have bought it locally, but needed to stay at the office until close. So, I paid a bit more for the item from Amazon, plus a $9 fee, and waited for it to ship.

It never went out on Friday. I got an email this morning indicating that it shipped today and will be here Tuesday. When I complained, they refunded the $9.

Why on earth did they not pre-plan for the storm and alter their promotions accordingly? If they were not going to ship on Friday, how could they have ever expected to get it here on Saturday?

We lost power last night at 10pm. By 2pm today, the temp inside the house was 48, so we were hunkered down most of the day.

Power was/is out in many parts of Quincy, including a comms tower that prevented communications with T (subway) workers, so I figured that we would be one of the priority cities for power restoration. Power came back on at 6pm, 20 minutes after I had finished digging out the car. If it hadn't come back on, we were about to find a place to go to be warm.

I'm irrationally disappointed at Amazon over their handling of the storm.

I bought an item on Friday, needing it for Sunday, so I paid extra for Saturday delivery. They were promoting Saturday delivery when I visited the item's page and the manufacturer was only offering "overnight" delivery with no Saturday option. I could have bought it locally, but needed to stay at the office until close. So, I paid a bit more for the item from Amazon, plus a $9 fee, and waited for it to ship.

It never went out on Friday. I got an email this morning indicating that it shipped today and will be here Tuesday. When I complained, they refunded the $9.

Why on earth did they not pre-plan for the storm and alter their promotions accordingly? If they were not going to ship on Friday, how could they have ever expected to get it here on Saturday?

It's very much a first world problem and I felt incredibly silly complaining about the delay to Yaggna, the friendly amazon rep who took my complaint. So I don't get to do the project I wanted to do today... I can do it next weekend. It's inconvenient, but inconsequential in the scheme of things.

That said, they have now also spotted me $20 in credit. I feel less disappointed, but still wonder why they don't have better systems for monitoring and reacting to inclement weather and other shipping concerns.

Those kind of snowfalls happen 2-3 times a winter in Edmonton. What's the problem?

This storm had less to do with the amount of snow and more to do with the accompanying 65mph winds and near white out conditions.

Ah so thursday!

So your point is, never visit Edmonton ever.

It's safe to skip visiting damn near everything between the Rockies until about Ontario unless you're right in the middle of summer. Even then, it's just flat, flat, and more flat for endless kilometres.

Those kind of snowfalls happen 2-3 times a winter in Edmonton. What's the problem?

This storm had less to do with the amount of snow and more to do with the accompanying 65mph winds and near white out conditions.

Ah so thursday!

So your point is, never visit Edmonton ever.

It's safe to skip visiting damn near everything between the Rockies until about Ontario unless you're right in the middle of summer. Even then, it's just flat, flat, and more flat for endless kilometres.

And for that, you can go to any of the Plains states and not bother with leaving the US.

Most of South Dakota is the flattest, most boring land to drive through, though I will say that the two cities of any size that I drove past looked very clean from the freeway.

Our town is at about 480m elevation. Yesterday, it was windy and rainy mixed with some flakes, blowing in from across the Adriatic. Today, it's calm but chilly. The cold air settled in. Just above freezing this morning but now about 5°. It started snowing about 3 hours ago but it's tailing off now. Not too much to speak of, but it's a novelty in these parts.

Those kind of snowfalls happen 2-3 times a winter in Edmonton. What's the problem?

This storm had less to do with the amount of snow and more to do with the accompanying 65mph winds and near white out conditions.

Ah so thursday!

So your point is, never visit Edmonton ever.

It's safe to skip visiting damn near everything between the Rockies until about Ontario unless you're right in the middle of summer. Even then, it's just flat, flat, and more flat for endless kilometres.

It's not that flat, there's the odd hill. It keeps Winnipeg from seeing Calgary at night.